Archived news

Expired:
Native American Art Auction on December 8

An assortment of Apache and other
Southwest baskets from the John Bowers Collection
highlights Bonhams’ annual fall auction of Native
American art, which will be held on December 8 in San
Francisco. The star of these baskets is a spectacular
Apache olla, which is one of the largest examples
known (est. $30,000–50,000).
The star of this approximately 400-lot auction is a
Navajo first-phase chief’s blanket from the Sidney and
Alexandra Sheldon Collection of Malibu, California,
(est. $200,000–300,000), which leads a large group of
Southwestern textiles. Ancient ceramics from the
Southwest are also well represented, the most impressive
of which is an asymmetrical Mimbres black-onwhite-
bowl decorated with anthropomorphized
quadrupeds and geometric forms (est. $10,000–
15,000). Preview as from Friday, December 5.

Expired:
International Tribal Art Book Prize 2014

The two winning books of the sixth edition are awarded December 8th, 2014, selected amongst the books on Tribal Art published between October 2013 and September 2014. An event organized by Tribal Art magazine in partnership with Sotheby's.

Sotheby's France is happy to end the year with two long awaited events on December 10. First the collection of Alexis Bonew, a passionate man who, throughout his life, kept secret a remarkable collection of forty works from the Congo. Among these, the Kongo Nkisi Nkonde figure (Democratic Republic of Congo) from the collection of Antwerp taxidermist Jos Walscharts, a striking Songye Nkisi figure collected by Lieutenant Willy-Eugène Claes between 1903-18, and the Surrealistic Luluwa hemp mortar, formerly in the collection of Henri Lavachery as well as a Lega Muminia mask collected by Colonial Administrator Raymond Hombert in 1927, and acquired from his widow in 1970. Preview as from Saturday, December 6.

Expired:
Tribal Art Auction on December 10

Artcurial will hold a sale on December 10
featuring 127 African spoons from the Liuba
and Ernesto Wolf Collection, which was put together
beginning in the 1950s. These are actually
a subgroup within a much larger and
multifaceted collection that included antiquities,
medieval objects, manuscripts, and old books,
as well as modern art, all of which will also be
offered by Artcurial at another sale on December
1. The exhaustive spoon collection includes
fine and representative examples of virtually all
of the styles that developed on the African continent, although
it emphasizes examples from traditional Côte
d’Ivoire societies such as Dan, Baule, and Guro, which are
the most coveted by collectors. Preview as from Saturday, December 6.

Expired:
Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie on December 10

A variety of the greatest examples of African art will be offered on December 10, from the striking modernity of archaic Ubangi Region statuary, to the abstract shapes of the Mangbetu kingdom. The latter will be represented by a historic set of objects of simple and great beauty, collected in 1934 by the Dominican Sisters of Namur. Oceanic art will be celebrated by a remarkable ensemble which exemplifies the mysterious beauty of the art of the Easter Islands, including two notable discoveries. Preview as from Saturday, December 6.

Expired:
African, Oceanic and American Indian Art on December 11

A Maori adze from the former collection of James Hooper opens the sale. Passed down from generation to generation, its blade of nephrite – a particularly hard and rare Polynesian stone – makes it an ancient Polynesian treasure. Also heralding from the South Pacific is a painted hook from Papua New Guinea, probably sculpted more than 200 years ago. Illustrating the Creation Myth, this Iatmul janus hook represents an ancestor whose body is made of several mythological creatures and comes from the collection of George and Ruth Kennedy, famous collectors of New Guinea art.
The sale also includes a selection of African ivories, of which the highlights are a rare leopard bracelet to be worn on the forearm from Benin and an Oliphant from Sierra Leone dating to the Renaissance period. Featuring classical depictions of European hunting, this hunting horn is one of the first examples of colonial art and one of the most beautiful Sapi-Portuguese artworks still in private ownership. Preview as from Saturday, December 6.

Pace Primitive’s latest exhibition, Fine
Sculpture from Three Continents: Africa, Asia, and
Oceania, is one of the highlights of African-art-related
auctions and exhibitions in New York City this autumn.
On view until December 19, the exhibition is more
than sculptures from West and Central Africa, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, India, and New Ireland.
Within the installation, the work of physically disparate
artists who delineate their ideas of beauty in stone,
wood, and metal are arranged to complement and
contrast one another. A fifteenth-century Sapi stone
spirit head, mahen yafe, from Sierra Leone, for example,
conveys noble, idealized beauty representing the
best of this relatively little-known sculptural genre.
Nearby, an eleventh-century Khmer head of Buddha
Sakyamuni is another fine, impressive, and sensitive
portrait in stone that elicits thoughtful comparisons.

Expired:
BIANCO e NERO

At the Parcours des Mondes in Paris last September,
Galleria Dandrieu-Giovagnoni presented a selection
of works that emphasized contrasts between the opposing
shades of black and white. The success of that show
was the impetus for a second exhibition, which will be on
view from December 1 through 15 at their permanent
space in Rome. The “black” part is represented by works
from Côte d’Ivoire that typically have dark surfaces, such
as a Yaure mask with a sculpted bird atop it, a Dan spoon,
and Senufo heddle pulleys. The “white” will include a rare
Nafana mask from Côte d’Ivoire and a Mossi antelope
mask from Burkina Faso, among
many other interesting objects.

Expired:
Native American and Precolumbian Art on december 15

A Native American and Precolumbian Art Auction will be help by Auction Eve on December 15 at 2.30 at Drouot Richelieu, 9 rue Drouot. Among the highlights, an idol ibex Pueblos and a Tiponi idol "Imploring Santa Fe". You can have a look at these two main lots by browsing the two following links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzyVw6NX7A (Tiponi idol) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbaJIh_h7HU (ibex idol). Preview as from December 13th.